Catholics Free to Speak Out on Issues

WASHINGTON — In June, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service put Churches
on notice for the 2006 campaign season.

It said it would step up
enforcement of its rules governing political participation by churches and
other tax-exempt religious organizations.

So does this mean that bishops,
priests and other Catholic leaders are in jeopardy of being muzzled in key
political debates?

No, according to
Tom Nash, director of special projects for Steubenville, Ohio-based Catholics
United for the Faith. He said that Catholic organizations can speak out freely on political
issues without fear of losing their tax-exempt status.

“The existing law allows Church
entities to still preach the Gospel — to speak out on issues — without having
to violate the law,” Nash said. “What is prohibited by the IRS is speaking out
on a particular candidate, saying vote for this one or don’t vote for this one —
naming names or explicitly taking sides.”

Concerns about a possible IRS
“crackdown” against religious groups arose after the IRS announced its plan to
ramp up enforcement of its Political Activity Compliance Initiative.

“While the vast majority of charities
and churches do not engage in politicking, an increasing number did take part
in prohibited activities in the 2004 election cycle,” IRS Commissioner Mark
Everson said in a June 1 press statement. “The rule against political campaign
intervention by charities and churches is long established. We are stepping up
our efforts to enforce it.”

Churches and other nonprofit
religious organizations qualify for tax-free status under the provisions of
Sec. 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

Under the IRS’ interpretation of
Sec. 501(c)(3), as set forth in IRS Publication 1828, religious organizations
are allowed to take public positions on issues of concern but may not provide
direct support to individual candidates or indicate that voters should vote for
or against specific candidates.

The IRS does not ban religious
leaders from endorsing candidates, but they must do so as individuals rather
than as official representatives of their church or religious organization.

Churches may invite individual
candidates to speak on church property and also may host candidate forums. But
in both cases, a church must not appear to favor an individual candidate.

A range of penalties can be
imposed for violations of the IRS rules. The most significant is the loss of
tax-exempt status.

The IRS has not modified these
rules for the current election cycle. But it has increased enforcement through
the Political Activity Compliance Initiative by launching investigations of
alleged violations earlier in the election year and by increasing the number of
investigators.

Bishops Targeted

In 2004, Americans United for the
Separation of Church and State called for an IRS investigation of Bishop
Michael Sheridan of Colorado Springs,
Colo., after Bishop Sheridan
published a pastoral letter saying that Catholics should vote against
candidates who support abortion, euthanasia and embryonic stem-cell research.

Barry Lynn, the organization’s
executive director, said in a May 2004 press release that Bishop Sheridan was
“using a form of religious blackmail to steer votes toward the GOP.”

In an interview this month with
the Register, Lynn
said he was pleased that the IRS was stepping up enforcement of its rules on
political activity by churches and religious organizations.

“I think that disposing of these
complaints and taking them seriously is a very important step,” said Lynn.

The pro-abortion lobby group
Catholics for a Free Choice, which has been denounced by the U.S. bishops’ conference for falsely claiming to
be an authentically Catholic organization, filed complaints with the IRS in
2004 against Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis
and Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver.

Neither Archbishop Chaput nor Archbishop Burke named specific candidates in
the 2004 elections that Catholics should vote for or against. But the
pro-abortion activists claimed the archbishops had violated IRS rules by their
forceful assertions that Catholic voters should vote for pro-life candidates
and against candidates who support abortion and other anti-life positions.

Asked by the Register about the
outcome of complaints filed in 2004 against Catholic organizations, IRS
spokesman Bruce Friedland said via e-mail that Sec.
6103 of the Internal Revenue Code prohibits disclosure of such information.

But it appears the IRS concluded
that the 2004 complaints against the three Catholic bishops had little merit. St. Louis archdiocesan
spokesman Tony Huenneke said the archdiocese had not
been contacted about the issue, and Bishop Sheridan told the Register Aug. 11,
“We never heard from the IRS.”

Jeanette De Melo,
director of communications for the archdiocese of Denver, said that the archdiocese has a
policy of not commenting on whether the IRS has contacted the archdiocese about
such complaints. In any case, De Melo said, “We’re
still going to preach the Gospel and the teachings of the Church, and we’re
going to do that in every way that we possibly can.”

Catholic Answers

California-based Catholic Answers,
which distributed 10 million copies of its Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics
in 2004, was also targeted by an IRS complaint from Catholics for a Free
Choice.

Jimmy Akin, director of
communications for Catholic Answers Action, said that while some modifications
have been made in 2006 to the Voter’s Guide none resulted from the IRS
complaint, which he described as an attempt to “intimidate” Catholic Answers.

But the guide is being published
this year by Catholic Answers Action, rather than Catholic Answers, “in order
to prevent frivolous complaints,” Akin said.

Catholic Answers Action is a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization. Such groups are designated by
the IRS as tax-exempt social welfare organizations and operate under different
regulations than religious 501(c)(3) groups.

Catholic Answers Action has posted
an independent legal opinion on its website, www.caaction.com. The opinion, by
the Indiana-based law firm of Bopp, Coleson & Bostrom, states
that because the Voter’s Guide “is issue advocacy and not political
intervention pursuant to the Internal Revenue Code,” it may be distributed by
Church groups without jeopardizing their tax-exempt status.

Potential
Problem?

OMB Watch, a non-profit federal
watchdog group that primarily monitors fiscal and budgetary issues, has warned
that the IRS’ stepped-up enforcement could pose a threat to legitimate
political activities undertaken by tax-exempt religious organizations.

“The IRS’ new approach to
enforcement could hamper nonpartisan issue advocacy and voter education and
mobilization efforts,” OMB Watch said in a May 2006 report. “Our concerns
derive mainly from the lack of a bright line rule defining what is partisan and what is not, coupled with ‘fast-track’
procedures.”

OMB Watch said that its review of
the IRS’s Political Activity Compliance Initiative had found that there “is not
widespread violation of the ban on intervention in elections.” And, the
watchdog group said, the IRS “should make clear that a charity’s right to
criticize elected officials is not suspended because an election is taking
place.”

But Catholics United for the
Faith’s Tom Nash says that the federal tax code still affords Catholics plenty
of latitude to uphold their faith through the democratic process, in a way that
transcends political partisanship.

“One can still be ‘wise as
serpents’ and yet ‘innocent as doves,’” Nash said, citing the example given in
the 2004 election cycle by Archbishop Burke, Bishop Chaput
and Archbishop Sheridan about highlighting the primacy of the life issues when
deciding how to vote.

Added Nash, “You can speak out on
certain issues, saying that these issues have primacy. And therefore, for
‘those who have eyes to see and ears to hear’, they will receive that Gospel
message.”

Tom McFeely is based in

Victoria, British
Columbia.

The
Story of a Voting Guide

EL CAJON, Calif. — The
2006 version of Catholic Answers Action’s Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics
became available in late July.

Like the previous version
distributed in the 2004 election cycle, the 16-page guide identifies five
“non-negotiable” issues that Catholic Answers says should take precedence when
Catholics are deciding how to vote.

The issues are abortion,
euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, human cloning and homosexual
“marriage” — all of which must be universally opposed by the Catholic voter.

“On most issues that come before
voters or legislators, the task is selecting the most effective policy to
implement or apply a moral principle. Good Catholics must embrace the
principles, but most of the time there isn’t a specifically ‘Catholic position’
on the best way to implement that principle,” the guide states.

“But some issues concern
‘non-negotiable’ moral principles that do not admit of exception or
compromise,” the guide continues. “One’s position either accords with those
principles or does not. No one endorsing the wrong side of these issues can be
said to act in accord with the Church’s moral norms.”

The guide lays out the case
against each of the five non-negotiable issues that it says Catholics must
oppose, citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) and several other recent Vatican documents pertaining to the political
responsibilities of Catholics.

The voter’s guide includes a
section on how to discern which candidates conform most closely to Church
teachings on the key issues, stressing that Catholic voters should “not vote
for candidates who are right on lesser issues but who will vote wrongly on key
moral issues.”

Jimmy Akin, director of
communications for Catholic Answers Action, said that as in 2004, the guide
will be distributed in booklet form and through downloads from Catholic Answers
Action’s website (www.caaction.com). And as in 2004, when 10 million of the
guides were distributed, Catholic Answers Action plans to run full-page ads in
national media like USA Today to
promote public awareness of the publication.

Tom Nash, director of special
projects for Steubenville, Ohio-based Catholics United for the Faith, applauds
the focus the guide gives to its five “non-negotiable” issues.

“Some issues are non-negotiable
because they regard the fundamental right to life, without which there are no
other rights because one is not alive to exercise them, a grim reality that is
manifest in the millions of persons killed via abortion and other means,” Nash
said. “There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion regarding the resolution
of many other problems, including dealing with poverty and waging war, but not
with regard to fundamental issues like abortion and euthanasia.”

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